Chapter 1 #3
That was part of why this place was akin to a haven, even with the concerning traces of fear in the air. Because, for once, that fear wasn’t her doing.
“If you hoped sending me in here would make me nauseous again, you’ll be disappointed. All I feel is lightheaded. The air is so filled with sex it could suffocate a nun.”
Diana barked out a laugh. Accidentally, going by the forced cough that followed. Maya was about to see if she could make Diana repeat the noise when her eyes drifted over the club floor again. And paused.
A short woman with shoulder-length platinum blonde hair drifted through the room, hips swaying in rhythm to the music.
Young, girlish, and while a glance might paint her as innocent, her expression showed the exact opposite.
Her lips were pursed, eyes lazily scanning the crowd as though she wanted—and expected—everyone to stop what they were doing in favor of staring at her.
Maya couldn’t help but play right into that expectation.
Though the woman was wearing a robe, it did nothing to hide the figure beneath.
A slight frame with lightly tanned skin, a narrow waist, and a small chest. Her face was done up with colorful makeup, matching her pink lipstick and soft baby blue eyes.
Those eyes were the only soft thing about her. The rest was all attitude, with her pierced nose and belly button, tattooed arms, and full lips stuck in a knowing smirk. Like she was daring you to try something, even if it wasn’t specified what that something was.
“Maya? You there?”
Diana’s voice brought the room back into focus. Maya turned away, shaking her head.
“Sorry. Got distracted.”
Distracted enough to gawk. Which had never been a vice of hers. She had bartended in clubs like this before and could keep her cool, which was the sole reason she’d been allowed anywhere near this job.
But then her gaze drifted again. The blonde dancer had let her robe drop a little as she leaned over a nearby table, smiling with impish satisfaction as the man she’d targeted stared at her cleavage.
Maya almost chuckled. Though everything in the woman’s expression screamed seduction, the desire filling the space was entirely one-sided. Places like this sold fantasies, and the young woman presented a rather convincing one.
Though… it might not be purely acted. The casual way she poked the man’s nose before walking away, smirking, suggested that her being a tease was equal parts innate and practiced.
“Is there anything else you want me to do?” Maya asked, still trailing the dancer. “I’m not meeting with the manager for another hour or so.”
“Try to fit faces to the names we have. Unless the three of them skipped town without notice, they should be somewhere inside.”
Easier said than done. Asking for real names in a place like this didn’t invite prolonged conversation. And right then, names were all Maya had.
Patricia Fulton. Nell Anthony. Harper Montgomery. Three women uninitiated to how many dangers the world contained and family to the partner of a Court Regent.
Maya and Diana had been sent to this sticky establishment with one purpose: determine if those three women could handle being shown how dark the world really was and then bring them to Chicago. Sharing a place of employment would make that far easier.
A well-planned ruse. One that was only happening because of how many hostile eyes were on the Court of Chains. Had they not needed to play this by the book, Natalya would have pushed for swift results rather than precautionary ones.
“What the hell…” Diana said.
“Something wrong?”
“Maybe. Stay put.”
She hung up with a click, and Maya snorted. Diana rarely provided details until after the fact. Back in Chicago, she had the bar record for subduing problematic partygoers and, impressively, she almost never got in trouble for it.
But with no conversation to focus on, Maya’s attention drifted again. Back to the platinum blonde dancer, now sitting at the empty bar only a few feet from her table.
Maya frowned. The woman’s teasing expression was gone. Instead, a smoky scent flowed off her, standing out amidst the mix of sweat, desire, and dozens of clashing perfumes that filled the room.
This woman, whoever she was, was scared.
Something bloomed in Maya’s chest. A hot, insistent, almost painful urge to get up from her chair and hurry to the woman’s side. To find out what, or who, had produced the fear now flowing off her slight frame, and make them pay for draining the joy from her soft, beautiful eyes.
Eyes that slowly scanned the dark room. That paused when they found Maya’s table. Eyes that narrowed slightly.
A quiet buzzing escaped her pocket, and Maya quickly turned away. This place was getting to her head. Women with a healthy dose of attitude had always been like catnip to her, so it wasn’t surprising.
But it didn’t explain why she had to force herself to look at the message lighting up her phone screen rather than the woman still staring at her.
Diana
Alley. Outside.
Thank fucking God.
Keeping her eyes away from the bar, Maya hurried for the exit, all but falling outside onto the sidewalk. She took a deep breath, letting the late January air fill her lungs.
It was fine. She’d just gotten overwhelmed. That was all.
Rolling her shoulders, she walked towards the corner of the building. A narrow alley came into view, the Lucky Penny’s back door near its end.
Diana was standing right by it, arms crossed. Like Maya, she was performatively dressed for the winter weather in jeans and a padded leather jacket. Neither of them needed the warm clothing, since Diana ran hot and Maya did the opposite.
“I’m here,” Maya said, making Diana flinch.
“Fucking hell.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Even in the dark, the streak of white at the front was clearly visible. “I hate when you do that. We need to put bells on you or something.”
Maya managed to shrug rather than cringe. “I’ll stomp harder next time. Did you find something?”
“Not just something. Look.”
The wall around the entrance was covered in cracks and poorly done graffiti. But one piece stood out.
On the door leading into the Lucky Penny, a human skull was painted in white. A red wolf’s head framed it, teeth clamping down on the bone and leaving red trails that made it look like the skull was bleeding.
Maya stepped back. “Well… shit.”
“You got that right. I picked up a scent earlier, but figured it was just someone passing through. Then I spotted that symbol by the parking lot, and now here, too.”
“Are they still around?”
“If they are, they’re hiding. But they were here, clearly. And they want people to know that.”
The supernatural world, though bloody and brutal, wasn’t a free-for-all.
It was ruled by several different Courts, with their own rules and customs, but all of them were subject to the laws of secrecy.
The Court of Chains was one of them. An unpopular one, due to its unyielding tenets and diverse nature of its members.
Since secrecy was in the interest of all supernatural creatures, Courts handled threats of discovery internally, but sometimes they needed to engage in diplomacy. For that reason, a few cities were dedicated neutral zones, unclaimed by any faction.
St. Louis was one such city. The only one of its kind in a thousand-mile radius. And it had been marked with a wolf brand so fresh that the paint still looked wet.
“It’ll be fine, though. Right?” Maya said. Diana kept staring at the door, shoulders tense.
“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”
Her tight tone didn’t sound convincing. The Court of the Wolf was one of the most widespread Courts in the world, split into hundreds of smaller packs.
Each had a unique brand they considered theirs, used to mark territories and warn off outsiders, and while they shared several customs, they were divided on just as many.
Some of them were peaceful. Others ferocious.
In Maya’s experience, that matched the practices of most Courts. They may favor secrecy, but only because it let them more easily get away with heinous behavior. That the Chains saved their ruthlessness for their enemies was the only reason she was still with them.
That, and the fact that she probably wouldn’t be allowed to leave. She was unique, after all.
The muffled music from inside the Lucky Penny increased in volume. The front entrance had opened, releasing a heavy aroma of sweat and sex into the winter air.
Maya leaned against the wall as a man in a wrinkled suit staggered past the alley, but she shouldn’t have bothered hiding. His eyes were glued to his phone, not even watching where he placed his own feet.
The man stepped on a patch of ice covering the sidewalk. He fell forward with a yelp, scraping his hand against the asphalt. A sharp copper smell blasted through the air as the man lifted his hand and looked at his now bloody palm.
Maya couldn’t help her reaction. Her fangs snapped out.
She spun in place, covering her mouth and nose. Her body shivered as that smell, potent and sudden, made an ache pulse through her jaw.
It was so sweet. Her mouth was watering, and she had to actively stop herself from breathing in deeper. From tasting the trace of blood flowing through the air.
“Maya?” Diana pulled Maya’s hand down. Her eyes went wide. “You have got to be kidding me.”
The man grumbled out a curse and stumbled away from the alley. But the smell was still there. The spilled blood had already lost its vitality, but the stranger was still bleeding. Still close.
It would pass soon. It had to fucking pass soon.
“When was the last time you fed?” Diana said sharply. “If I find out I just sent a half-starved vampire into an overcrowded clubroom, we’re going to have a serious fucking problem.”
That word—vampire—was like a punch to the stomach.
Maya had held the title for almost a year, but she hadn’t needed to deal with the consequences of it until recently.
Diana might know that Maya’s reputation was bullshit, but she wasn’t immune to the stories that spawned it.
She knew what had happened the last time Maya tasted living blood.
Scarlet floorboards and frightened screams. Fire and ravenous hunger that would have killed her under normal circumstances.
“I fed before we left Chicago.” Maya winced as she retracted her fangs. “I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t put anyone at risk like that.”
Never again. Never again would she force that pain onto another person, just because her fangs needed a fix.
“You can’t fuck this up,” Diana said. “Natalya is watching this job like a hawk, and since I’m in charge of it, any mistakes fall back on me. If you can’t handle it, then I need to know now.”
“I can handle it. I was just surprised. It won’t happen again.”
Diana would have been affected, too. All fangers needed to feed on human blood, and therians were no exception. But unlike vampires, who had to feed almost every day, therians only needed to do it once per month.
“You sure?” Diana said, voice still stern.
Maya nodded. She forced on a grin, showing her now fangless teeth.
“I’m sure. See? I have it under control.”
Diana maintained her pissed-off expression for another moment. Then she sighed and dug into her jacket pocket.
“Here.” She tossed Maya a small plastic bag. “Brought this from the safe house. Just in case.”
Maya barely stopped herself from gagging at the sight of the blood bag. Since they could only visit St. Louis, they had set up at a safe house a few miles into Illinois. A small, secluded cabin packed with enough food and cooled blood to last months.
Her fingers tightened around the plastic. “Thanks.”
“Just treat it as sustenance. Makes it go down easier.” Diana patted her shoulder and backed onto the sidewalk. “I’ll do a quick check of the nearby buildings. Eat and don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
As Diana took off in a jog, Maya leaned against the alley wall and let the shadows wash over her. Though, it wasn’t really something she had to let happen. The darkness clung to her as though sewed to her flesh, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t escape it.
Keeping herself from sniffing the air, she pricked a hole in the plastic and brought it to her lips, gulping down as much cold blood as she could before the nausea started.
It tasted dead. Metallic, cold, and lifeless. But as disgusting as it was, consuming it was a minuscule price to pay if it kept the horror inside her contained.
It would be a lie to say she hadn’t considered giving up on that.
On keeping this undead body of hers alive.
The only time that thought wasn’t present was when she allowed herself to forget about its source.
The journey from Chicago to St. Louis would have been faster on foot rather than by driving, but getting queasy after spending hours in a car was a reminder of what her life had been like before.
If she was lucky, the next few weeks would be filled with more moments like that. She’d just be a bartender, making conversation with people who didn’t know how terrifying the world really was. How terrifying she was.
Snow crunched somewhere in the darkness. Movement fluttered in her periphery, making her turn in its direction as though her gaze was pulled by hooks.
The neighborhood was dark and quiet, with the main fixtures being the overcrowded Lucky Penny and the parking lot across the street, barely lit by flickering lampposts.
And someone was there. At the edge of the lot, crouched behind a few snow-covered bushes, their form mostly hidden by shadows.
Maya cocked her head. There was something oddly familiar about the figure. About their movements, their posture, the way they were hiding just out of sight. A stalking predator, waiting for prey to walk past.
Then the back door of the Lucky Penny swung open.